Party Brands in Contentious Politics

Movementization and its Limits in Europe

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Endre Borbáth

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

10.02.2026

Key questions in my research agenda

I study party competition, contentious politics, and participation with comparative, mixed-method evidence.

  1. Party-Movement Interactions: When and how do electoral and protest politics influence each other?
  2. Participation & Representation: Who participates across arenas, and how does that depend on the political supply?
  3. Democracy & Contestation in CEE: How do historical legacies, and current institutions shape representation and participation?

These questions connect three levels of analysis: macro (party systems & institutions) • meso (parties, movements, organisations) • micro (citizens’ participation & identities).

The New Climate Divide (Emmy Noether)

Climate change is becoming a major political divide as mobilisation in elections and civil society produces socially embedded, opposing coalitions. (e.g., Kenny & Langsæther, 2023; Mau et al., 2023; Schwander & Fischer, 2025)

  • My Emmy Noether project examines how climate conflict reshapes:
    1. mobilization by coalitions of political parties and movements
      • text-as-data methods
    2. participation in electoral and contentious politics
      • survey panels and experiments
    3. group identities associated with the climate conflict
      • qualitative focus groups
  • comparative across Western (Germany, France, Sweden), Southern (Italy, Spain), and CEE (Hungary, Romania), between 2010-2030

Crisis of representation

Across Europe, parties face a crisis of representation: declining membership and trust, weaker partisan ties, and higher fragmentation.(e.g., Casal Bértoa & Enyedi, 2021; Dalton & Wattenberg, 2000; Mair, 2013; van Biezen et al., 2012)

  • Citizens increasingly engage through non-electoral channels (protest, campaigns, civic action).(e.g., Dalton, 2017; Meyer & Tarrow, 1998; Rucht, 2007)
  • Parties respond by adjusting not only what they offer (issues / positions), but also how they present and organise themselves.

What changes? Substance vs. form

Substance

  • Issues, cleavages, positions
  • Who mobilizes whom on which side of what conflict?

Form

  • Personalization, populism, movementization, communication and media-strategies
  • How do parties connect to citizens?

Branding is a bridge: it translates substantive conflict into organisational cues.

Party brands as a lens on political change

Party brands are durable organisational signals that encode how parties want to be recognized. (e.g., De Vries & Hobolt, 2020; Lupu, 2016; Scammell, 2015)

  • Brands represent parties’ investment in differentiating their appeal.
    • Link supply and demand -> information shortcuts for voters.
  • They provide a window to observe transformations associated with two sources of change, with possibly different dynamics:
    • Branding by new parties (replacement)
    • Rebranding by existing parties

Roadmap

  1. Concept: movementization as a form of party branding.
  2. Supply-side evidence: party names in Europe (1945-2023), types and diffusion.
  3. Demand-side evidence: conjoint experiments, voter trade-offs over movement cues.
  4. Closing: implications for representation and my broader research agenda.

What is movementization?

Movementization refers to parties selectively adopting cues associated with social movements in their brands. (e.g., della Porta et al., 2017; Kitschelt, 2006; Tarrow, 2021)

  • It concerns how parties construct their brands as political actors
    • not only tactical choices
  • As a process, movementization can be partial, uneven, and reversible.

Examples of movementization

Dimensions of movementization

  • Movementization is defined by three analytically separate dimensions:
Name & label
(symbolic/
discursive)
  • classical
  • nonclassical
Action repertoire
(behavioral)
  • electoral
  • contentious
Organisation
(structural)
  • organisational networks
  • supporter involvement
  • Parties’ capacity to adapt differs across these dimensions.

Dimensions of movementization

Name & label
Action repertoire
Organisation
  • These dimensions need not evolve simultaneously.
  • Parties can pick and choose: adopt some movement elements without others.

Empirical focus: party names

  • Party names as an empirical indicator of brands (e.g., Kim & Solt, 2017; Avina, 2024)
    • high visibility, durable, comparable across contexts
  • Content-based perspective, distinguishing between:
    • reference to the classical ideological traditions (yes / no)
    • reference to the organisational form (‘party’, ‘movement’, other/ none)

Typology of party names

Data: party names in Europe

  • Source: ParlGov (Döring et al. 2023), Wikipedia, Party Manifesto Project database (Lehmann et al. 2023) combined with manual coding
  • Units: party name × party-year × country (659 unique parties)
  • Scope: 28 European democracies (Northwestern, Southern, CEE), 1945-2023
  • Focus: prevalence and types of party labels

Survey experiments

  • Survey on political attitudes, history of participation, issue positions, and socio-demographic indicators
  • Four countries:
    • Austria, Italy, Hungary, Germany
  • Online access panel, quota sample for age, gender, education
  • Sample size: roughly 2,000 per country
  • Two conjoint experiments on new party naming and renaming of established parties

Distribution over time by dimension (1945-2023)

Distribution of party name types (1945-2023)

Distribution by party family (1945-2023)

Hierarchical regression results

  • Party age: strongest predictor (new party entry)
  • Party family and opposition: matter, but opposition only for nonparty labels
  • Context (polarization, turnout, volatility): weak and does not explain movement labels.
    • Presidentialism is a partial exception.

Trend: movement labels diffuse, but more slowly than other nonclassical names.

From party strategies to voter responses

  1. Substantial changes in party names, suggesting that parties attribute high importance to names as a signaling device.
  2. Movement-oriented branding is selective and uneven on the supply-side.
    • It often occurs in waves, under specific conditions.
  3. European party systems remain hybrid, not movement-dominated.



This raises the question of how different voters evaluate such signals.

  • Do movement cues resonate broadly, or differently across electorates?
    • Focus on trade-offs with a conjoint experiment design

Demand-side test: new party branding

Random profile

A new political group is coming to the country’s parliament with the promise to fight for program!

  • The group calls itself name
  • organisation
  • It promises action to represent its program.

This new force needs the support of people like you!

  • Program: always symmetric (not randomized)
  • Name:
    • New country name
    • Party for a New country name
    • Movement for a New country name
  • Organisation:
    • empty
    • The new group maintains close ties with civil society organisations and has a strong presence of active members at the local level
    • The new group has a strong personality at the top and communicates intensively via traditional and social media
  • Action form:
    • empty
    • To take the fight outside of parliament and organise public demonstrations
    • To focus on their work and advances in parliament

Average effects: what voters reward (and punish)

Branding under heterogeneous electorates

  • Movement-oriented names alone do not generate broad electoral rewards.
  • Voters respond more strongly to organisational and action-based cues.
  • Party branding therefore involves trade-offs across voter groups rather than vote maximization.

What does this mean for democratic competition?

Movementization might intensify the tension between inclusion signals and credible representation.

  • Risk 1: Symbolic representation
    • brands provide visible responsiveness without deeper organisational change (e.g., Katz & Mair, 2009; Pitkin, 1967; Scarrow, 2015)
  • Risk 2: Fragmented representation
    • selective resonance across publics results in trade-offs rather than broad inclusion (e.g., Bawn et al., 2012; Mansbridge, 2003)

When does form become substance?

  • Movementization concerns form: how parties signal representation.
  • Substance: issues create enduring camps, coalitions, and identities
    → conflicts become structuring divides (e.g., Häusermann & Kitschelt, 2024; Hooghe & Marks, 2018; Kriesi et al., 2012)

Climate politics is an ideal case to examine how representational signals harden into durable camps.

Three pillars of my research agenda

Party-Movement Interactions Participation & Representation Democracy & Contestation in CEE
Core question When and how do electoral and protest politics influence each other? Who participates across arenas, and how does that depend on the political supply? How do historical legacies, and current institutions shape representation and participation?
Key concepts Movement parties; sponsorship; cleavages Turnout; protest; volunteering; ideological preferences; emotions Democratic backsliding; autocratization; mobilization; civil society
Empirical scope Parties ↔︎ movements ↔︎ media Electoral + nonelectoral participation West-South-CEE comparisons
Methods Event data; party/org data; text/ media measures Surveys; survey experiments; panels Comparative designs; mixed methods; case studies
Flagship ClimateDivide (Emmy Noether): climate conflict • parties • movements • participation • CEE

Exit and Voice: a multi-level account of political withdrawal

Non-participation is not the opposite of participation. It is a dynamic trajectory shaped by political supply and crisis experience.

  • Core question: Why do citizens move between participation, withdrawal, and re-entry, and with what consequences for representation and legitimacy?
  • Mechanisms (supply-side): organisational expectations and mobilisation rhythms -> responsiveness and efficacy signals -> strategic demobilisation.
  • Design (two work packages):
    1. After the Peak: re-contacting the post-2019 climate activist cohort to map exit, substitution, and re-activation.
    2. Re-entry under Backsliding: how withdrawal turns into renewed participation under democratic stress (Hungary and Poland, with CEE extensions).

Thank you for your attention!

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Distribution of names in Northwestern Europe (1945-2023)

Classification of movement names

Demand-side test: party re-branding

Scenario A / Scenario B

The party changes its image by:

  • Name
  • Organisation
  • promises Action form to represent their program.

Many support the plan, but there are also those who argue that the proposal threatens the party’s hard-earned reputation. Sympathizers and members of the public are encouraged to voice their opinions!

  • Name:
    • empty
    • Conditional on the name of the party:
      • changes its name and deletes the word party from its name
      • changes its name and now calls itself a party
      • changes its name and deletes the word movement from its name
      • changes its name and now calls itself a movement
  • Organisation:
    • empty
    • invest in closer ties with civil society organisations and a stronger presence of active members at the local level.
    • establish a strong personality at the top and communicate more intensively via traditional and social media.
  • Action form:
    • empty
    • intensify the struggle outside the parliament and organise public demonstrations
    • focus more on their work and advances in parliament

Comparative experiment results

Voter profiles used to summarize heterogeneity

Median voter Partisan loyalist Critical citizen Left-behind
Party attachment weak strong none weak
Political trust medium high low low
Populist attitudes medium low medium high
Protest experience none none frequent none

Heterogenous effects (new parties)

Heterogenous effects (existing parties)

Heterogeneity across countries (new parties)

Heterogeneity across countries (existing parties)

Anschlussfähigkeit (Beispiele)

  • Institut für Politikwissenschaft
    • Prof. Dr. Melanie Walter-Rogg – Schnittstelle über Forschungsdesign, Kausalinferenz und empirische Designs in der Parteien- und Verhaltensforschung
    • Prof. Dr. Jerzy Maćków – Brücke über Regimewandel/Autokratisierung und Vergleiche mit Transformationsprozessen der 1990er Jahre (West–Mittel-/Osteuropa)
  • DIMAS
    • Prof. Dr. Anna Steigemann – Wie räumliche Ungleichheiten (z. B. urbane Kontexte, Inklusion/Exklusion) Mobilisierungspotenziale von Bewegungen und Parteien strukturieren
    • Prof. Dr. Rike Krämer-Hoppe – Wie Parteien Klima-/Umweltnormen politisieren und in programmatische Angebote/Frames übersetzen
  • IOS (Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung)
    • Dr. Fabian Burkhardt – Mobilisierung und Partizipation unter eingeschränkter politischer Konkurrenz (Vergleich Demokratie–Autokratie)

Lehragenda

Was ich lehre (Erfahrung)

  • Parteien, Parteiensysteme und Parteiwandel
  • Partei-Bewegungs-Beziehungen und Protest
  • Klimapolitik als politischer Konflikt
  • Partizipation und Nicht-Partizipation
  • Quantitative Methoden (Umfragen, Experimente, Text-as-Data, Inhaltsanalyse)

Was ich in Regensburg anbiete

BA Politikwissenschaft

  • Vergleichende Europapolitik; Parteien und Wettbewerb
  • Politische Partizipation, Protest, soziale Bewegungen
  • Politik in Mittel- und Osteuropa; Klimakonflikte

MA Demokratiewissenschaft

  • Demokratische Krisen und Transformationen
  • Repräsentation, Polarisierung, Mobilisierung
  • Zivilgesellschaft und „Demokratie von unten“

Wie ich lehre

  • Interaktiv und forschungsnah (Projektarbeit, Peer-Feedback, iterative Betreuung)
  • Transparente Leistungserhebung (Schreiben, Präsentationen, digitale Formate)
  • Transferorientiert (Gastvorträge, Praxisbeispiele, Kooperationen)
  • Deutsch- und englischsprachig, mit Unterstützung für internationale Studierende

Ongoing and future projects

Ongoing projects

ClimateDivide

  • From Valence to Cleavage: Conceptualizing the Climate Divide
  • Automated Political Claims Analysis With LLMs

Party-Movement Interactions

  • Party Brands in Europe: Movementization (book manuscript)
  • Movement Parties and Parliamentary Speech in Latin America
  • Protest as an Anchor: Climate-related Parliamentary Speech

Participation & Representation

  • Opinion Polarisation between Educational Groups

Democracy & Contestation in CEE

  • Ingroup Leniency for Protest Violence (Hungary)

Future plans

ClimateDivide

  • Survey experiments on climate-related communication
  • In and out-group identities in open-ended survey questions
  • Qualitative analysis of metaphors in mobilization

Party-Movement Interactions

  • Party brands and media coverage of climate conflict

Participation & Representation

  • Exit and Voice: a multi-level account of political withdrawal

Democracy & Contestation in CEE

  • Re-entry under Backsliding: how withdrawal turns into renewed participation